Crafty Mindz — Attraction in Beaverton

My daughters (10 and 12) attended the summer art camp. At $400 for a week of camp I assumed they would be getting quality art instruction and engaging in different types of art. I was very disappointed when the camp consisted of one canvas painting a day. The kids are given a canvas with a picture pre-drawn on it, along with red, blue, yellow, and white paint. If they didn't want to draw the pre-drawn picture they were "allowed" to paint over it. The rest of the day was mostly free time. I was sad that I wasted so much money on this camp that was essentially daycare, but my kids seemed to be reasonably happy and safe so I didn't worry too much about it.

On Thursday around 4:00 pm (pick up time is 4:30) I received a multiple paragraph text saying that my daughter had been bullying other kids. This is out of character for my child and I was surprised. When I arrived to pick up my kids I tried to ask more questions about what happened. I asked why concerns hadn't been brought to me earlier in the week if this had been an ongoing problem. The staff weren't able/willing to answer my questions and kept saying "all the information is in the text we sent you". When I asked what they had done to correct the behavior or if they had talked to my child about the concerns, they said "you're the parent, that's your job". I understand the parent has a role in it, but it is hard for me to help if I didn't know there was a problem. After lots of questions of the staff and my children the best I can figure out is that my super-energetic daughter was too rowdy for another kid and that child complained to her parent. The other parent complained to the staff, and the staff complained to me. As far as I can tell my child never actually bullied anyone or was even intentionally mean to anyone. Just a little too loud and silly and pushed too hard during a tag-like game.

After trying to talk to the on-site staff for over 20 minutes I called Anuj, who I believe is the owner. He was very kind and apologized many times for the way his staff addressed their concerns for my daughter. After my interactions with the staff I didn't feel good about sending my kids back on Friday. Anuj understood and refunded me one day's worth of tuition.

Overall it seems like the staff is very young and inexperienced. My daughters said they are frequently on their phones. I don't blame them for not knowing appropriate behavior management or for not knowing how to interact with parents, but I would not feel safe leaving my kids with them again.

Anuj was very professional and helpful, so it is a shame the rest of the camp was such a disappointment. I think the camp has the potential to be much better but I would do a lot more research about specific activities and staff qualifications before signing my kids up for any...

I was looking for an art school for my 6 and 7 year old. I was a little surprised when we got there and found out it would be $70 for an hour drop in, but my kids were excited to try it. I was told I needed to wait in my car.. which was fine. Even though my son is a diabetic and the forms I filled out did not have anywhere to put his medical condition. When the class was over, both my kids came running out and told me they never wanted to go back. They showed me tons of drafts of their drawings and that the teacher kept telling them to do it over again because it wasn’t exactly like the sample drawings. My son said that he felt a few of them were good but the teacher kept pointing out his mistakes. In the end the final painting was partially drawn by the instructor. My son is a kid who’s a perfectionist and hard on himself. I always told him with art, you have to make it your own. This class crushed him. I wrote the owner and did not receive any response so I figured I will let others know in case their children might not do well with this...

We celebrated our daughter's birthday at Art With Mehak. It was so well organized and full of fun and activities for kids. Mehak is highly talented and very much familiar with kids interests and keep them in mind while planning activities for them. Kids love to paint and they customized according to our needs. I highly recommend planning parties with them....